CHICAGO (WGN) — To most, members of the 1919 Black Sox are mere ghosts, tragic souls kept alive in movies and remembered only for betraying baseball. But for Sandy Schley and Debbie Ebert, their connection to the most infamous team in history is deeply personal.
“I remember sitting on his lap, always smiling. Always smiling,” said Ebert, referencing her great uncle George “Buck” Weaver.
Weaver played for the White Sox from 1912 through 1920. He is buried on Chicago’s South Side at Mount Hope cemetery at 115th Street and South Fairfield Avenue. His modest headstone belies his baseball past.
“My mom would always tell stories that Ty Cobb said Buck was best third baseman he ever played against,” Schley said.
Their mom, Patricia Anderson, was Buck’s niece. When her father died in 1931, a four-year-old Patricia, her older sister Bette and their widowed mother moved in with uncle Buck and aunt Helen on the south side of Chicago at 71st and Winchester.
“He was a wonderful father figure to them, and they always wanted to make it right,” Ebert said.
By then Weaver had been banned from baseball for a decade, lumped in with seven other members of the 1919 White Sox accused of conspiring with gamblers to intentionally lose the World Series.
Weaver’s play on the field, however, spoke a different story. He hit .324 at the plate, and did not make an error during the 8-game series.
“He didn’t take any money. He had guilty knowledge but didn’t have anyone to tell and he let his play on the field speak for itself,” said Dr. David Fletcher, president and founder of the Chicago Baseball Museum and a long-time advocate for Weaver’s exoneration. “He has the most tragic story of anybody in baseball.”
But even after a jury found Weaver and his accused teammates not guilty of conspiracy to defraud during their 1921 trial, baseball commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis permanently banned the eight players from organized baseball.
“In the prime of his life, it’s just like cutting a tree down when it’s at its best,” Ebert said. “That’s what they did.”
Weaver stayed in Chicago, and from 1922 until his death in 1956 at the age of 65, he appealed for reinstatement a half dozen times, to no avail.
“He always had dreams he would be back on the team,” Schley said.
“That he would be back in baseball in some capacity,” Ebert added. “It’s just sad his letters were ignored.
Decades later, the 1988 film “Eight Men Out” renewed interest in the Black Sox Scandal, with Evanston native John Cusack playing Weaver.
In 1998 official MLB historian Jerome Holtzman, the legendary Chicago sports writer, recommended Weaver’s full reinstatement. Weaver’s nieces also led the campaign to clear his name, but all their efforts fell on deaf errors.
Then on May 13th, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred in one fell swoop lifted the ban on 16 deceased players, including all eight members of the Black Sox.
“About damn time!,” Ebert said of her reaction.
“I had the biggest smile on my face in a long time. It was a great.” Schley said.
But the ruling also came with mixed emotions, with Patricia and Bette having since passed, unable to see the fruits of what they had long gone to bat for.
“She would’ve been so happy but also would not have wanted him lumped together with others because he didn’t take any money, he played fantastic baseball,” Ebert said. “He was not in on it at all.”
Nearly 70 years since his death, Buck’s ban is finally broken. His story inscribed with a new epitaph—one long overdue in the hearts and minds of those who always proclaimed his innocence.
“He may be off the ineligible list, but he still needs to be exonerated that he’s not in same class as other people,” Fletcher said. “There’s a lot of pride for South Siders, that this guy is a South Sider, he’s still there. That’s what makes this story to me resonate.”
“He paid a very high price for something he didn’t do,” Ebert said. “We want to see that corrected.”